Every cat needs the chance to do what they do best - this will always involve a lot of sleeping, playing, climbing, scratching, hunting and toileting. Sadly, many of these natural cat behaviours are deemed undesirable to us humans. However, it is important to remember that there is a reason behind all of these actions.
Lets looks at the number one problem behaviour amongst cat owners – scratching the furniture!
Cats need to scratch things. It's normal for them to do so and they normally do it for these three reasons:
1. To remove the dead outer layer of their claws.
2. To mark their territory by leaving both a visual and scent mark (cats have scent glands on their paws).
3. To stretch their bodies and flex their feet and claws.
Cat scratching posts and activity towers
Conventional scratch posts are normally only about as high as your knee or roughly about as tall as your cat’s head. The incentive to scratch an object this tall compared to an object far taller (a table leg or even the side or your sofa) is not very high – your cat will go for the taller option 99% of the time.
Most activity towers are big and tall and always have scratch elements to them. These types of activity towers are great for kittens or for giving you cat a place to sleep up high. The downside is they are very big and quite bulky.
Cats also like vertical thread to scratch and most scratch posts come with horizontal surfaces which can be an issue for some cats. You can try getting some hessian sackcloth material and wrapping it around the scratching post to make it more appealing if they don’t like what they see. You can also use cardboard scratch mats when space is at a premium as these are cheap and usually good alternatives to offer up to your cat when they scratch in multiple areas.
The alternatives are out there you just have to know where to look. You can find some quite inventive solutions to all your cat’s scratching needs, from, cardboard mats to sturdy, tall posts, large activity towers or even three tiered barrel systems where the whole outside surface is one big giant scratch post.
